Finally, a morning when I do not need to go to work. Breakfast, however, remains the same: lemon water, black coffee (I just feel like it), smoothie made of coconut milk from a carton, plain yogurt, canned pumpkin, hemp protein powder, peanut butter, strawberries, banana and kale. This was a top-notch smoothie and I would make it again. For each 16 oz-ish smoothie:
At 3:00, after a trip to the store and a run, I have another cup of decaf with half and half, while beginning to plot out a backpacking trip my kid and I are planning to do at the end of this month.
Shopping (Co-op): mouthwash, pomegranate cranberry juice, canned papaya chunks, 3 avocados, frozen peaches, frozen strawberries, cherry lemonade, cocoa butter stick for skin care, Rudi's 7-grain bread, probiotics for husband. $62 (mostly the probiotics).
Afterwards, I realize I meant to buy some kind of nice bakery bread, not sliced sandwich bread like Rudi's. I give kid $12 and send them down the street to the bakery, instructing them to get a good loaf of bread (around $6-7) and keep the change as payment for the job, and/or buy themselves a bakery treat. Kid comes home with something unusual (pesto-asiago bread, perhaps?) and eating a rosemary shortbread cookie. I'd told kid to get any kind of bread they wanted. But it did not occur to me that pesto-asiago was a possible outcome.
While kid gets the bread, I start the dried chickpeas cooking, in order to make Madhur Jaffrey's Spanish-Style Spinach with Chickpeas for dinner. I also make the dough for Molly Yeh's cardamom-lingonberry hamantaschen, finally. Then the chickpeas need to cook and the dough to chill for a good couple of hours. Meanwhile, I wash dishes, prep the spinach and garlic, feed the cat, catch up on my food diary, look at stuff on Facebook. Around 6:30, I check the chickpeas-- soft. Get the spinach dish cooking while I roll out the dough for the hamantaschen.
About this time I realize there is no sugar in the hamantasch dough. Really? I check the recipe again. Nope. I guess pies don't have sugar in the crust. Yeh says to use powdered sugar to "flour" the board when the dough is rolled out. I've never heard of doing this, and the whole process ends up very sticky and not particularly efficient. I end up patting out a lot of the circles with my hands instead of rolling. Still, in the end I have 19 serviceable-looking hamantaschen. I may have underbaked them a little. They are softer and more tender than I expected, also less sweet. But my husband, for whom I baked them as his "pie-of-the-month" (er, the month of March-- we're a bit behind), really likes them. I certainly think they are okay too.
- 1 cup coconut milk from a carton
- 2 T. plain yogurt
- 1 T. canned pumpkin (optional)
- 1 t. protein powder of your choice
- 2 T. natural peanut butter
- 1-3 strawberries, depending on size
- 1/2 banana
- about 2 medium-sized leaves kale
At 3:00, after a trip to the store and a run, I have another cup of decaf with half and half, while beginning to plot out a backpacking trip my kid and I are planning to do at the end of this month.
Shopping (Co-op): mouthwash, pomegranate cranberry juice, canned papaya chunks, 3 avocados, frozen peaches, frozen strawberries, cherry lemonade, cocoa butter stick for skin care, Rudi's 7-grain bread, probiotics for husband. $62 (mostly the probiotics).
Afterwards, I realize I meant to buy some kind of nice bakery bread, not sliced sandwich bread like Rudi's. I give kid $12 and send them down the street to the bakery, instructing them to get a good loaf of bread (around $6-7) and keep the change as payment for the job, and/or buy themselves a bakery treat. Kid comes home with something unusual (pesto-asiago bread, perhaps?) and eating a rosemary shortbread cookie. I'd told kid to get any kind of bread they wanted. But it did not occur to me that pesto-asiago was a possible outcome.
While kid gets the bread, I start the dried chickpeas cooking, in order to make Madhur Jaffrey's Spanish-Style Spinach with Chickpeas for dinner. I also make the dough for Molly Yeh's cardamom-lingonberry hamantaschen, finally. Then the chickpeas need to cook and the dough to chill for a good couple of hours. Meanwhile, I wash dishes, prep the spinach and garlic, feed the cat, catch up on my food diary, look at stuff on Facebook. Around 6:30, I check the chickpeas-- soft. Get the spinach dish cooking while I roll out the dough for the hamantaschen.
About this time I realize there is no sugar in the hamantasch dough. Really? I check the recipe again. Nope. I guess pies don't have sugar in the crust. Yeh says to use powdered sugar to "flour" the board when the dough is rolled out. I've never heard of doing this, and the whole process ends up very sticky and not particularly efficient. I end up patting out a lot of the circles with my hands instead of rolling. Still, in the end I have 19 serviceable-looking hamantaschen. I may have underbaked them a little. They are softer and more tender than I expected, also less sweet. But my husband, for whom I baked them as his "pie-of-the-month" (er, the month of March-- we're a bit behind), really likes them. I certainly think they are okay too.
But what I really liked was the Spinach with Chickpeas! Apart from the fact that it takes forever to boil the dried chickpeas, this is a simple recipe. And you could always go with canned. Lots of pungent spices. And I found that long boiling of the spinach with the lid off (having added some extra water), as the recipe instructs, results in much more pleasant results than spinach boiled with the lid on. The texture is so much less mushy. I may do this from now on. We served the spinach and chickpea dish simply, in bowls with hunks of the pesto-asiago bread on the side.
For dessert, while watching The Great British Bake-off on YouTube, we ate two hamantaschen apiece.
For dessert, while watching The Great British Bake-off on YouTube, we ate two hamantaschen apiece.